Systematic Salvation
by BonGarland
Summary: He's become her protector in the dark, while she shines light on the blackened, corrupt nooks and crannies of Hell's Kitchen. Post S2 Kastle oneshot, subtle pairing.
_**Again, no explanation for this, really. Apologies for any technical or editing errors, I am just hyped to post this pairing again.**_

* * *

Somewhere along the line, she'd gained a second shadow. That should have bothered her, but it didn't.

Occasionally, on nights she was in the field following a lead, she'd hear a metallic click from the rooftops, or a shadow from above would glide along the cracked pavement and straddle her own. Strangely, these were the nights when she felt safest, somehow knowing who her tail was.

* * *

Sometime after she left Nelson & Murdock, Frank Castle had become her unofficial and self-delegated bodyguard. She wasn't sure when it started, but it had become apparent one rainy night when a survivor of the Kitchen Irish ranks had confronted her in the alley outside her apartment. A glock was all she could see, and her face had already taken a backhanded blow.

The guy was raving about Grotto, who had apparently told him of the tall, pretty blonde who'd let him down before he died. Karen was starting to shiver, soaked to the bone and listening to the tirade that the rain almost entirely muffled. She didn't even know why she was being murdered. Suddenly, a shot had rung out from behind her, and a corresponding blossoming of crimson appeared on her assailant's shirt. His face-first fall onto the pavement hadn't resounded in the night, thanks to the rainfall, and she was grateful for that. There was enough of the soundtrack of death in her dreams most nights of the week.

No lights turned on, no concerned neighbors ran outside to see where the shots came from or where they went; this was Hell's Kitchen, after all.

Turning cautiously, her floral print dress clinging to her drenched frame, Karen tentatively raised her hands. But it was unnecessary, she realized, as a familiar face had already lowered the gun and was slowly approaching her, his own hands raised in something like supplication.

There was a gleam of white on his chest, the lone source of light from his person, and Karen found it grimly humorous that it happened to be the skull insignia he'd become known for. An insignia of death, who had been her one constant companion since she'd arrived in New York, she thought morosely. Now the grim reaper was another companion; he was "dead", after all…

His gruff call cut through the night and into her reverie. "You alright?"

She became aware that the rain was driving the spreading pool of blood towards her white flats, and swallowed hard. Taking a few steps away from the body, she hoped her nod was distinguishable from the strong shivers racking her form.

"Let's get you inside," he said, moving forward. "I'll deal with him later." His hands, one of which had pulled a trigger a moment ago, were incredibly gentle as they guided her up the porch steps, pulled keys from her boneless grasp, and let them into her apartment.

Somehow he found some ice, wrapping a towel around it and quickly taking her free hand, using it to hold the impromptu remedy to her rapidly-bruising cheek. She herself hadn't even remembered she'd been hit.

Karen just stood there for a moment, numb fingers dropping her bag onto the carpet, while he moved into the kitchen area, clanking sounds starting a minute later. There was the recognizable sound of the kettle being set to boil, and if she wasn't mistaken, the creak of her liquor cabinet being opened. Frank Castle brewing tea and raiding her booze stash wasn't how she'd expected this night to end.

It felt incredibly domestic, and she wasn't sure how to deal with it.

A minute later Frank stepped into her line of view again, eyes darting to the side as he gestured vaguely at her. "Might wanna get out of…" He rubbed at his head with the heel of his hand, suddenly looking awkward. "Wet clothes, I mean."

Karen smiled after several blinks, the gesture feeling foreign but automatic as she watched Frank _scurry_ back to check on the boiling kettle. "All to get me outta my clothes," she mumbled to herself, heading to the bathroom after shedding her coat and grabbing a tank top and cotton shorts to change into.

After a steaming shower, she stood looking in the mirror, running a comb through her hair. Eyeing her bare shoulders and the blush that was quickly rising to her cheeks, she cleared her throat and grabbed a fluffy cotton robe, throwing it on open over her pajamas.

The smell of coffee greeted her as she entered the living room, and she glanced at the wall clock, noting it was past midnight.

"Coffee's the solution at any hour," his gruff voice muttered from behind her, and she turned to find him nursing an already half-empty mug and proffering a mug of her favorite tea, an herbal blend. "Get this in you, it'll help." She glanced behind him, at the bottle of whiskey on the counter, and he shrugged. "In case it doesn't."

Accepting the mug gladly, Karen perched on the edge of her small sofa, watching as Frank made himself at home in her lone armchair.

"So," she started after a sip, finding the tea the perfect temperature to not scald her tongue, "Mind telling me what happened tonight?"

He raised a brow over the rim of his coffee mug. "Shoulda thought that was obvious. Still some Irish rats around, and that one knew where you lived. Couldn't let him spread that."

Her turn to raise her own brow. "Others probably already know."

"That's what this is for," he said, gesturing with the mug of coffee, and she had a feeling she knew his to-do list for the rest of the night. Tucking her hair behind her ear, she sighed into her own mug. "Am I causing more problems than I'm solving, doing this? Investigating, writing about these things and people?"

"All due respect - self-doubt, not your thing, Ma'am," Frank was shaking his head disapprovingly even as she spoke. "If anything, you're helpin' out me and Red. Flush the bad guys into the open, we take 'em out. Just don't care for the fact that some are walkin' around with your address in their pockets."

"I guess you think it serves me right, then, trying to help Grotto," she muttered into her tea, suddenly annoyed.

There was silence for a moment, then Frank lowered his mug, resting it on the arm of the chair and looking thoughtful. "Someone in the neighborhood taught me that there ain't just black and white in the world. Everyone's tryna do their own version of right." He shrugged, and that seemed the end of the statement. Appreciating the lack of condemnation, Karen continued to sip her tea.

The two of them listened to the rain, the sound lulling Karen towards sleep. The last thing she remembered was a hand taking the mug from her slackening hand, a sensation that might have been lips pressing against her forehead, and her front door closing quietly.

* * *

Another night she was closing in on a weapons-dealing group that was supplying problem youth in Hell's Kitchen; there had already been two shootings during botched robberies. The gang gave the kids weapons and a cut of the cash, both incentives strong during these troubled times.

Rumor was that the gang was using a major furniture chain's warehouses to traffic their wares at night, some sort of code words disguising crates of guns as sofas or something. Naturally, when she chose to investigate, Karen found herself crouched being boxes of build-it-yourself desk chairs, fumbling in her bag and mumbling half-prayers to herself. At some point, she told herself, she would google what exactly the difference between a journalist and a detective was supposed to be. It was certain she was doing something wrong.

She'd told herself she'd only get photographic evidence, but her frenzied pressing of the shutter button on her camera had somehow turned on the flash in a way that only she could have done. Cursing herself just as the startled gangsters starting doing the same, she'd made her way onto the second floor of the warehouse. Now, her .380 was empty from warning shots that she'd hoped would stave them off long enough for her to escape, and she was seeking a window that wouldn't kill her to jump from.

She was certainly glad she'd opted to wear sneakers for her night investigations.

Swallowing thickly, she finally realized she had nothing else in her bag that could help, stashing the camera and securing the latch before swinging it back over her shoulder. Running to the far end of the warehouse's second floor, she came to a large, multi-paned window, the view outside obscured by a nasty mixture of grime. That presented the problem of how exactly to jump out a window that didn't appear to open, with an unsure landing, at night, and not break her camera. Or herself.

It had always been a given that she was too lucky, far too lucky to make it out of all the situations she meddled her way into.

"Freeze." The words behind her had her shoulders tensing up as she slowly stood, turning to spot a man about two dozen paces away who was aiming a gun straight at her. Yells started sounding from below, accompanied by sporadic gunfire, gunfire that was somehow familiar, Karen thought.

"He's here!" She caught, before a yell cut into garbled noises.

"Kill the girl!" Someone else yelled, stomping coming up the stairs at the far end of the floor, as a crate fell behind the guy facing her. Karen flinched as the man's gun swiveled to follow the noise, and then made it back to her. He cocked the gun and she knew she was dead, out of luck, before a weight bowled her over just as the man's shot resounded in the space.

"Stay down," a familiar voice growled into her ear, before the weight lifted off her and a new gunfire joined the cacophony. Screams of pain and sounds of bodies falling filled her ears, and Karen squeezed her hands over her ears, hating that this felt like the soundtrack of her life some days.

After several moments, most sound in the building ceased, that she could hear, except for steady footsteps thumping towards her. She hoped they were the right ones, removing her hands from her ears and blinking tears of distress from her eyes. Frank was there; she saw the skull before him, ever-present on his Kevlar vest.

Refusing the hand he held out, she rose unsteadily to her feet by herself, clearing her throat and running a hand through her blonde mane as she tried to compose herself.

"So, here we are again," she said aloud, disliking how weak her voice sounded. As she spoke, a trail of blood slowly seeped further out from behind a crate near where her gunman opponent had been.

"Ma'am," he said with an assenting nod. She hated that, although it was his title of respect for her; made her sound forty-eight and useless, to her ears. "It's Karen," she replied, suddenly exasperated and knowing it was the ebbing fight-or-flight sensation making her cranky.

"Well, Karen, whaddaya say we get out of here," Frank said, gesturing that she lead the way. As she passed him, the gun he held continued to pivot around the room, always on guard, always seeking a target, it seemed. At times like this, he reminded her just what a different sort of animal Frank Castle was; he felt furthest from her in these instances, despite having just saved her life.

When they made it outside and her car was in sight, looking no worse for wear, Karen wearily dropped her bag on the passenger seat, turning with arms folded to face Frank again.

"Thanks," she said quietly. "I can take myself home from here."

He nodded, eyes not on her but scanning the neighboring buildings, rooftops, cars, everything _but_ her. "Still bothers you, huh?"

She nodded, shoving an unruly blonde lock back behind her ear and moving to open the driver's side door. "Every day. Doesn't matter who it is, there's blood, childhoods, lives, just snuffed out." When she was belted in and turned on the car, she rolled down her window; he moved around to her side of the car.

Hands now in his pockets and no gun in sight, he scuffed a boot against the pavement. He could be just another working class guy making his way home now.

"Still doin' that exposé on the German organ market?"

"Of course."

"Then I'll see you around." When she opened her mouth to reply, he was already gone.

Despite her frustrations with his methods, she knew it did work, gave a finality to some of the atrocities in Hell's Kitchen and saved people along the way. And she was alive right now to attest to that.

She half-smiled at her reflection in the rear-view mirror on her drive home.

Maybe, she thought, maybe she made her own luck; created it when she tried to save it from the electric chair.

* * *

Weeks later, the German exposé had been written and published without a hitch, and three more after that.

Her current assignment was human trafficking; a new Romanian import business was supposedly bringing in young women to be sold into prostitution, again using shipping containers in the port, as if that wasn't predictable.

Not for the first time, Karen had wondered if Daredevil was onto any of the trails she was; she hadn't come into contact with Matt since he'd revealed himself, and she'd walked out, determined to be rid of vigilantes as cohorts.

It was a hypocritical goal, seeing how often she ran into Frank Castle, but a girl could try and hold to her principles, no matter how weakly. There had been rumors of tenacious underground Yakuza dealings, however, so she supposed Matt's hands had been full lately.

Not that she needed help, of course not; currently strapped down to an uncomfortable wooden chair with duct tape whose removal was going to take a layer of skin with it, she was doing just fine. Fine for someone who'd been knocked out and dragged into one of the aforementioned shipping containers, which reeked of sweat and fear.

Her captors were giving her everything she needed, though, their assumption being that she wouldn't see another sunrise. That was fine, as long as their attention was on _her_ ; across the container, a crowd of Eastern European girls huddled in the corner, eyes wide with fear and shivers wracking their undernourished bodies, all marked with signs of abuse.

Karen had backup; these girls didn't.

Licking at the blood gathering along the corner of her split lip, Karen rolled her eyes and tried to channel some more bravado. "A dozen gangs have tried before you to run this same market," she said scornfully, glaring sidelong at a younger lackey who was enthusiastically sharpening a knife. "And all of them have failed. You think killing one journalist is going to rid you of opposition?"

"Shut her up," one of the lead men called in a thick accent, waving airily in her direction.

"I really am curious," Karen continued, ears straining for sounds of violence from outside.

"And I do not care. Dead soon," the man replied, looking through papers on a clipboard that looked like an inventory list, but was really a roster of victims.

"In that case, share your wisdom. 'How to make it in Human Trafficking'. I could even write it for you, if not for, you know…" Karen shrugged, jerking her head to toss her hair out of her face. She'd have to cut it soon, the length was really not conducive to aiding her in the situations she found her way into.

There it was, a dull thump outside. Hopefully no gunfire; that would draw attention, and Mr. Knife to her right was already foaming at the mouth to cut her when his boss gave the okay. Creep.

"We get no trouble, because our merchandise stays quiet when we want it to, unlike you," one of the higher-ups said with a sneer, pacing closer. He was American, with a thick New York accent and an ill-cut suit to complete the image of Stereotypical Scumbag.

"Yeah, you probably couldn't handle American _merchandise,_ anyways," Karen said haughtily, eyes on the far end of the container, where the door was creaking open to admit another lackey, who was holding his left arm at an odd angle and keening. A shadow slipped in behind him, the moniker of a skull grinning at her even in the dim light, and Karen's heart lightened at the sight.

A flurry of shouting in Romanian ensued, and it was lucky that they all appeared to be knife fighters; gunfire would have a deadly ricochet effect in the metallic container. Several of the men stormed the end of the container, startling cries of alarm from the girls who were behind Karen.

Mr. Blade, to her right, lunged with his knife, and Karen flung herself sideways in the chair, gritting her teeth in pain at the impact with the floor, but satisfied when he somersaulted over her with a howl of pain. The chair had caught him in one knee, and the knife slipped from his grasp, landing in the couple feet of space between Karen and the man. Luckily, her hands were taped along the chair arms and not behind her; managing to scrape the chair sideways along the floor, she landed a grip on the knife.

It wasn't enough to give her any sort of maneuverability to cut herself free, so she instead jerked her bound wrist, sending the knife skidding several feet from them and towards the rest of the fight. Hoping it was enough, Karen focused on her feet; by bending one foot at an extremely painful angle, her stiletto could just reach some of the tape on her other foot to penetrate it. It was a weak measure, but at least something. A roar of rage had her looking up in time to see Mr. Blade coming towards her again, hands outstretched to choke her, it looked like. Trying again to scoot the chair backwards, she growled in rage when the movement was unsuccessful. Then, he was on her, but she felt no grip around her larynx.

Opening one eye, and then the other, she saw him slumped on his side on the metal floor, his own blade emerging from his chest, back to front. Dark blood dribbled from quivering lips, and Karen drew a shaky breath at the sight, whimpering in shock when hands landed on her upper arms.

"It's okay, Karen," a low voice murmured, and the chair she was bound to was righted, the movement disorienting her for a minute. A hand swept across her face, gently pushing her hair from her eyes, and a hand knuckled her cheek for a second, but long enough to instantly calm her. When the dizziness cleared away, her hands and feet were free, if a bit raw from the duct tape, and Frank had moved on to the girls in the corner. He was muttering something similar to Italian that she assumed was Romanian, and the knowledge he spoke it surprised her anew. One of those questions he'd simply answer "elite training" to, like he did with so many that she asked.

Suddenly he straightened, his posture defensive and expression oddly closed off, and Karen looked to the far end of the shipping container to see Daredevil in full gear and suit, taking in the scene in the way that only he could.

"Karen?" He said heavily, and her mouth quirked to the side in a mixture of annoyance and gratitude. Not just one, but two heroes had come to her rescue tonight; hers and the unfortunate girls behind her.

Daredevil's appearance had done something to Frank, though; he was instantly gruffer in voice and attitude. Cutting the bonds on the last of the girls just as Daredevil came to Karen, checking her for injuries, Frank moved to leave.

"Hell of a story they've got," was all he said, nodding to her as he stepped out the metal door. Her eyes stayed on his retreating form, even as Matt asked if she was alright and how she'd gotten there. She knew the suited hero wasn't omniscient, but Frank seemed to be at times, and she supposed she was used to no questions by now.

Murmuring something reassuring, she moved to check on the girls instead. As she escorted one of the weaker ones out into the night and fresh air, something told her to look up; a skull emblem flashed out of sight, and Karen smiled widely in the darkness.

Sometimes, dead men were a welcome sight.

* * *

 _Thank you for reading! -Bon_


End file.
